


Beautiful, Broken Creatures That They Were

by glittergrenade



Category: Hellions (Comics), X-Men (Comicverse)
Genre: Brotherly Bonding, Dissociation, Gabe is more judgemental than he likes to think, Gen, Inverted Alex, Inverted Alex Summers, Mood Swings, Non-Graphic Cruelty to Animals, Non-Graphic Killing, Post Hellions #4, Post-Inversion Alex Summers, Tw for words like crazy bc that’s how Gabriel thinks of himself and by extension alex, also X-Men #10 rights, implied psychosis, past trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-13
Updated: 2020-10-13
Packaged: 2021-03-08 22:06:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,456
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27004015
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/glittergrenade/pseuds/glittergrenade
Summary: Alex is crying, and Gabriel can’t leave him.
Relationships: Alex Summers & Gabriel Summers
Comments: 7
Kudos: 8





	Beautiful, Broken Creatures That They Were

**Author's Note:**

> Ahh but I’m so disorganized, I barely got this edited and posted before Hellions #5 omg. I wrote it in the aftermath of Hellions #4, which was fantastic.
> 
> There is of course no correlation between mental illness and immoral behavior, and no part of this story intends to stigmatize or promote those fucked up ideas. These Summers boys just happen to have both.
> 
> Tbh, and I got soooo many hcs about this, as evil inverted Alex really seemed mentally healthier than the insecure pile of nerves that was our boy previously, and let’s not forget whatever Emma did to un-invert left him feeling like this~
> 
> _**[LORNA]:** You’re back, Alex. I know how it feels. You were gone… buried under that **other** personality… trying to claw your way out—_
> 
> _**[ALEX]:** That’s **not** how it feels, Lorna. Not for me. I know that all the things I was doing… I know they were wrong. But that **other** me… that’s what I feel now. I feel him… screaming to get out. I feel like… maybe… I’ve stolen his life from him. Like maybe **I’m** just the facade… and he’s the truth waiting underneath._
> 
> _—X-Men: Blue #28 (May 2018)_
> 
> That kind of dichotomy/mental battle ain’t good for no one, and it feels absolutely realistic dealing with that constantly he eventually had a mental break. I really hope Hellions explores his disorder for more than just extra drama and ultimately doesn’t take shortcuts on his healing like comics tend to do because gahfjdjkm does this book make me care for so many characters I previously had only a passing awareness of 🥺 That’s not what this story is about however~
> 
> Do not let me get started on Gabriel, as this is from his perspective anyway. X-Men #10 is heavily referenced/quoted here. Just know that not all of his perceptions of Alex’s mental state are correct (but some are). He’s not the most reliable narrator in the world (I love him so much).

Gabriel stood absolutely still. He was good at standing still for long hours; it was a necessary skill when you waited on aristocrats, not to move a muscle while they gossiped and talked lest the punishment you were rewarded with made it difficult to stand so still the next day. He used to forget time (forget himself). It was a skill to merely exist, until an order was given. It was a skill that was drilled into him.

Gabriel hated merely existing — gods knew he’d done nothing but rebel from that once he could. He hated being unseen. But he couldn’t afford to be seen by the universe, not after everything he’d done and how badly he wanted to be _different_ for the acceptance his family offered, so mostly he drank and partied and tried not to remember a thing as he watched Scott put up with him, because the oldest brother knew the youngest brother was only barely holding himself together. Now the great leader had two brothers that were barely holding themselves together.

Alex didn’t seem to notice him — maybe it was a testament to his aptitude at being unseen, but more likely whatever was happening in Alex’s mind drew more focus at present. Alex was nestled against a thick organic armrest as he gripped his shins in opposite hands, squeezing at muscle as he rocked himself, crying openly. It was an awful sight.

Granted, Alex had always been more outwardly emotional than Scott, Gabriel remembered clearly — _fury and loathing poured off Havok’s triumphant face as he punched his brother half to death with all the life energy he’d sapped off a sentient star_ — but those emotions always had something offensive or at least defensive about them. Now he was just… fragile. He hadn’t even been like this when Gabriel made him listen to Lorna’s screams, he had never looked entirely _broken_ before in Gabriel’s memory. Was he broken?

Confusion knotted in his chest, each detail of his brother’s misery sinking into his brain. His teeth sunk hard into his bottom lip until he tasted blood, and he didn’t stop.

He could feel his heart pounding, his vision blurring slightly with its pace. His head was spinning, and felt light as air. But he didn’t make a sound. He didn’t let his body reveal what he was feeling, because the last thing Alex needed was one of Vulcan’s explosive outbursts to throw him back in memory — memory that seemed so distant, now, yet still so relevant. That was what Gabriel’s exile had made of him, apparently: able to cope with anything, so long as he avoided it. And so he avoided it, by whatever means necessary, because his family loved him and he knew his anger scared the hell out of them.

It was simpler since emerging from the void. There was a time to destroy and a time for patience. That was a _good_ thing, he told himself.

_You can lie to yourself and pretend to be better… to be unbroken…_

He couldn’t remember much, from his time in the Fault. Just oblivion, and floating, and horrifying faces… echoes, that lingered in his dreams. Echoes that he hoped desperately were mere nightmares of his broken mind. Because who was ever claiming he was unbroken? Time had made things clearer for him… didn’t that make sense?

The panic was dying down, and he returned his attention to Alex. The blonde was still weeping; his cheek slammed across the backrest with a gentle thud. He was entirely wrapped in his own world; and it would be so easy for Gabriel to turn back, and walk away. He could see if there were leftover margaritas in the fridge, throw back a couple or five, sneak off to his room to roam the satellite internet until he found what he was looking for: oblivion. Not the _cold fear ache panic weakness nothingness existential horror everything_ oblivion within the Fault, but true reprieve; he wanted to know nothing of the present until it was over.

But he was part of a family now. They’d taken him in, they’d forgiven him. No part of Krakoa’s rules forced them to do that. He might not be ready to interact with the wider universe, even with all other X-Men he’d hurt, but he loved his brothers for the way they accepted him, and gods dammit, he owed them.

 _Thirsty suckers piercing through scorched imperial garb, slimy roughness of a Lovecraftian tentacle fastening lovingly around his weak body, having been nothing so long, faintly existing, too weak to fight, to resist…_ no, no, NO.

Gabriel took only a moment to locate his own feet before striding into the living area with a confidence like a true Summers, even though his insides tremored. He sat down beside him on the couch and tugged his knees beneath himself, turning himself to face Alex. He had no words to say.

Alex gasped hoarsely as he ducked his head, blinking, and then looked at him. Shakily his hands jerked from where they were about his ankles, to wipe his eyes. “G-Gabriel,” he mumbled, meekly, and that at least he showed awareness with his brother right in front of him had to be a positive sign.

“Hello brother, hard day?” Gabriel said, and internally he winced. It was only too obvious that comforting people had never been his forte. And now Alex was staring at him, through clear blue eyes so similar to his own.

“I lost someone,” he admitted, without hesitation. He trusted him. “Someone special.”

Gabriel stared back at him a moment, and felt his brow wrinkle infinitesimally as he wished he stayed more in the loop with what was happening. Honestly, he barely understood what was wrong with Alex beyond some sort of magical brain damage, let alone what he did day to day with his group of unstable killers. Was he saying he’d lost someone who couldn’t be brought back? A human?

“I’m so sorry, Alex,” Gabriel said, softly, eyes dropping towards his brother’s trembling hand before tentatively taking it. He relaxed when Alex squeezed it, relieved that he hadn’t overstepped. This was his brother. He was doing the right thing.

“It’s not fair, so many people in this world… just don’t understand…” Alex gazed around purposelessly, and wrapped his other hand around Gabriel’s, beginning to stroke it with his fingers. “I understand,” he said suddenly, looking up again, and his eyes were tearing anew. “You understand. I finally understand you, Gabriel… I’m sorry it took so long.”

“It’s okay,” Gabriel met his eyes, and a red hot recognition folded inside him as the emotional distance seemed to close. He felt aware of everything in the now — the gentle folds of the organic couch cushions beneath them, the clean air of their lunar home that inflated his lungs with every pulse of breath, the warm pressure of Alex’s calloused palm softened with sweat. He no longer struggled over what to say. “No one should have to understand,” Gabriel emphasized, squeezing his hand.

“No one should,” Alex echoed, the tears budding once more in his eyes. It was surreal. “But you’re real, Gabriel. I didn’t know about you, Scott couldn’t remember you, and so many didn’t care. But you showed them all. Whatever it took. You made them care.”

“I did make them care,” whispered Gabriel, folding his fingers again over his brother’s. “Being real isn’t worth that. I wish I still wasn’t, sometimes.” Death in the hundreds, or could it be thousands slain by his hands alone? Millions more had died on his orders, so he’d learned it was unproductive to bother with numbers.

The air hung with a warm buzz, that seeped into every crevice, until he felt oddly engulfed as Alex traced spirals onto his hands, and inside his chest Gabriel ached. He breathed in the mood that permeated them, that way of _being_ that he understood but Sharra and K’ythri knew could never eloquently express, not unlike the constant buzz of the fire within him, but of a different kind. He understood the pain and the hurt and the loneliness and the places it could drive you — _blink and you can’t go back_ — he knew what it was to be desperate to feel real, when you felt yourself floating away and it was so calm and terrifying at once… he remembered the lengths he’d gone to feel grounded.

Alex’s eyes had a glazed look as he stared without focus, watching him in a sort of dazed, entranced expression. His fingers squeezed tightly, and he seemed to take every ounce of comfort in Gabriel that Gabriel engaged in a futile struggle to not take in him.

If asked, Gabriel wouldn’t be able pin down what it was that happened right then — though a very real change came over Alex’s features. A wild glint in the eyes, an unbalanced smile sliding over his tear-stained lips. But it wasn’t only that. It was everything about him; his body was less tense, less… fragile.

Gabriel had little time to study the shift in demeanor before Alex threw his arms around his shoulders, and embraced him warmly with his chin snug atop Gabriel’s shoulder. When Alex whispered to him, it was breathy, and his words felt hot and damp beneath his ear. “Show me~” Alex’s voice was ragged, like the product of thoughts that fractured and reorganized as he spoke. “Show me how it’s done, Emperor Vulcan~”

Something inside Gabriel went always cold when he heard his former title — and he didn’t even remember what it was like to actually _feel_ cold. But this time it was different — this time he felt his fire, and was very aware of what all of this meant. A war waged inside him of choices, and on its second front panic battled release. This was Alex, and he wanted the real him, and he understood him, and somehow this felt right, and… did Gabriel only want this to be his purpose because of his own insecurity? He didn’t even know why he’d survived the Fault. He didn’t know why he was alive.

_You have good in you… and that is unacceptable for the work we have set out in front of you._

He focused into Alex's grip on his shoulders, so hungry, so intense. Maybe… this meant that if they were right, if those _horrible incomprehensible inconceivable monstrous inescapable_ dream entities of the void _of his mind_ were right and he could only break, no matter how hard he tried, then Alex, at least, would still love him. _Stop stop stop no_ … focus away. He could get through anything, if he avoided it.

_Incomparable, indescribable pain, beneath the light that blinded his eyes from a clawed hand, it had been so long since he could see past his pain and anger, this wasn’t regret, this was clarity, gods, he had killed his father—_

“I’d show you,” Gabriel promised, wading around _everything_ , “but all that I wrought across the galaxies has since fallen to cinders. It filled no void. The fire that burns inside me could not be quenched by the blood I spilled. It quiets its crackling flames for only a moment.”

Alex pulled back, and looked into his eyes, with that widened, strange smile still across his cheeks. “Then give me that moment~” he whispered, gently massaging his hands.

Gabriel closed his eyes, and he felt the heat building inside him, the fire that never stopped tormenting him, that darker part of himself he tried to ignore.

_The fire uncontrollable, his emotions irretrievably slave to its flames, he’d killed whoever disrespected him, whoever spoke their mind, whoever made him feel like he was less than emperor, but he couldn’t kill Talon and he needed to get out of the flagship and kill Black Bolt his mind was going to explode—_

_Little had he known…_

_BOOM…_

His memories were fuzzy from his days as emperor, as if partially drowned in the high of the intense emotional rollercoaster in which he’d lived. But certain things stood out, like vivid reels in a sea of smog. 

The thought occurred to Gabriel that it ought to _worry_ him to see Alex like this, not only desiring but _asking_ him to indulge those same tumultuous fires that had destroyed him, an echo of the memories that did worry him, no, terrified him with the surety of what he could so easily give into again. And he did feel terrible for Alex — he knew that even behind that smile, his brother was still in pain. But mostly he just felt _relieved_ to be valued for what he was good at, for the things he’d made his name doing (for all the reasons he hated himself). Alex understood him. Alex loved him. And, for once, though no less trapped in this mind of nightmares that plagued him, this cycle of avoidance and hedonism… Gabriel felt a little bit less alone.

Alex’s smile didn’t falter, affectionate and longing beneath joyless eyes. It made Gabriel want nothing more than to help him.

_Is this why I’m alive?_

He’d never hated Alex the way Alex had hated him. Alex, who once took every opportunity to look at an emperor and call him a pathetic child (which got an extreme reaction every time, because the masters with the whips had called him pathetic even though he tried so hard). Gabriel had only wanted validation. It was why he’d imprisoned instead of killing him, constantly visiting even though each time he knew he’d leave feeling more unraveled and angry than before — because however much he tried, Gabriel was incapable at mind games. He was too emotional to be manipulative.

He nodded, the white fire in his eyes glowing as he stood up, holding out a hand. Alex took it, and pulled himself to his feet with delight on his face. It was so encouraging.

“With me,” Gabriel smiled, turning around, to dash out of the Summer House. Alex let out a small squeal at the force, but was quick to race after him, following his younger brother out onto the sandy surface of the blue area of the moon. Gabriel paused, locking eyes with his brother. Though the smile was dissipated, Alex’s eyes were fixed on him, a sort of admiration to them. The fire within Gabriel glowed.

Once, he’d never thought a day possible where Alex would stop trying to assassinate him and embrace him as brother — and now they all shared a house, socializing with their father who visited between raids! He’d never thought a day would come where he’d hear Alex say _I understand, show me._ And now…

“Hold on,” Gabriel instructed, stepping close to wrap an arm around Alex. Alex did as instructed, wrapping his arms tightly around his brother. “The fire within you does not need oxygen to be fed to thrive, right?” Gabriel checked.

“To live~?” Alex cocked his head. “Yes, brother, of course I need air to live~”

“Really? But I thought—”

Alex chuckled, patting Gabriel’s back in understanding. “Throw me from the airlock straight into a sun, sure, that energy will sustain me, but eliminate the sun, and I’m space debris in minutes~”

“Of course,” Gabriel tried to distract himself from the memory of his brother’s return from that sun, horrible, glowing brightly with murderous intent. Alex didn’t want to kill him now. No, he only wanted to kill… unless Gabriel was severely misreading him, which he knew that he wasn’t.

_Havok’s gloating hand around Vulcan’s throat because he couldn’t help but savor it, ever with witty remarks about quitting the X-Men because X-Men don’t kill—_

Gabriel stared upwards into the inky sky — it was littered with lights, a star map of constellations — and there was Earth, too, partly in shadow, a great jewel of blue and green. He closed his eyes and wished his brother could be happy, that what was happening now was just another bad dream… but he didn’t really mean it.

 _I won’t let the shell break, this is the real me, I won’t lose what I have…_ “That’s alright, Alex,” Gabriel said quietly. “I’ll keep your fire alight.”

He’d never done this before — never carried a person into space with him, and he’d never used his massive power to manipulate the energy composition of a person to keep them alive. A true cosmic being would be able to generate a bubble of air. Gabriel had never claimed to be a cosmic being, and would never want to.

Alex didn’t make any signs of reassurance at Gabriel’s promise — but then, he hadn’t shown any signs of concern to begin with, either. Gabriel knew what it was like not to have spare energy for such trivialities as self-preservation. Just because Alex didn’t seem so engulfed with anger as had been Emperor Vulcan, didn’t mean his focus wasn’t otherwise occupied.

_More ships, more production, more death and destruction, like lumber to be fed to the fire within him, he needed to see it, to do it, so he killed and killed and killed with his own hands, though deep down he knew Araki was right and this war would destroy his people, he burned too hot and he didn’t know how to stop himself…_

Gabriel’s heart ached, and he longed to help him — strengthening the determination in his heart.

He could tell by now that Alex was in some kind of dissociative state; he used to do the same, when he was a slave, and again whilst living in the sewers, when the insults or the degradation or the exhaustion was too much; it had happened on-and-off until the Fault _until those entities_ and it was one more thing that was terrifyingly out of his control… like forgetting most of his childhood. It used to unnerve members of the court when he was emperor, who saw it as just another unpredictable mood change. His mind had found a way to escape, for a while. But for Gabriel, nothing else took its place. He wasn’t certain that was the case for Alex.

Alex didn’t respond either when Gabriel adjusted his body’s energies, he didn’t react when he successfully bypassed his respiratory system. But his grip tightened when Gabriel lifted from the ground, his arm shifting to wrap over his shoulder, and Gabriel burst through the bubble that kept the blue area of the moon habitable.

He was loath to fly in this direction. The Shi’ar Empire only brought horror and unbearable heat and bad memories to Gabriel’s mind anymore. But it was the only part of space he actually knew. There were so many empty planets — and he just didn’t know the demographics outside the Shi’ar Empire. There was little chance they’d be policed here, on the furthest outskirts in the quadrant nearest Earth.

Gabriel was very fast, but the Empire was far from close, in the great measure of the universe. Space was vast, and no way was he coming knocking on an Imperial Stargate. He could make it there in… a few hours, maybe.

The time slipped past easily. They didn’t talk. Alex seemed to have no desire to, his thoughts probably operating somewhere far from here, and Gabriel certainly didn’t; he turned his mind inward, to the fire that burned inside him. He wasn’t an impatient man, really, not when he didn’t feel empty, when he wasn’t pursuing affirmation or revenge. He focused on the direction, and on keeping the fire alive within his brother.

Gabriel looked at his brother. Alex was gazing around at the void around them, arm slung over Gabriel’s shoulder while he let the younger do the work of holding on — not that it was work, they were weightless.

They were almost there, and he announced it, clearing his throat. “Presently you will see light again that does not glimmer from the distant stars or the fire within me,” his eyes issued bright wisps like flame. “Tell me if the overstimulation is too much, and we’ll slow our descent.” The last thing he wanted was to lure his brother to retreat even further from reality.

He wasn’t used to carrying passengers through space. He didn’t know how to compensate for the effects — the void was truly a void, and they were going to depart that very suddenly, and while his own physiology and eyesight were designed for such travel, he knew that the impact on those who weren’t would be dizzying at best, as they moved beyond the speed of human eyesight. The transition from nothing to everything was beyond compare, and this three-hour trip had been just long enough to acclimate the mind.

“Trippy~” Alex said softly, as they drew closer to the planet’s sun.

“Does it hurt?”

“Guess so, but it’s such a lovely setup~” Alex murmured, and he seemed transfixed upon the sun before he tore his eyes away, back towards Gabriel, who noted the delayed reaction time.

Gabriel smiled, though his heart ached, and he wanted only to reassure him. But he increased their speed instead, deeming to get this done with, starting at a plummet towards the planet as he willed the energy to protect Alex. Alex smiled faintly, extending a hand into the atmosphere, as if trying to absorb the fire that burned the air with their friction.

There was a canopy of trees like a blanket, whose pale branches were spindly, yet whose blue leaves grew thick and luscious. Gabriel effortlessly directed their descent; the branches only grazed them as they landed on the planet’s surface.

Alex stumbled away instantly as they touched the ground, with a dismissive gesture Gabriel recognized as of trying to separate himself from his surroundings. He took a couple steps before falling to his knees amid the alien bracken. Gabriel stood over him, watching the shoulders heave, giving him his space to kneed the ground, until Alex looked up once more.

“We’re in a forest~” he commented, plainly.

Gabriel nodded, his own heart rate increasing. “This is the forest wherein I show you fire, brother.”

“Yes, brother~” Alex’s body shivered in excitement, accepting Gabriel’s hand to be hauled to his feet. “I’m counting on you~”

Gabriel’s eyes crackled. He could sense the energy signature of mammalian life forms through the trees. They were close by; this had been a good landing. He stalked in that direction, conscious of Alex following him closely with little caution towards quietness. The fire burned within him vibrantly.

“The inhabitants of this world are a warlike, nomadic race,” Gabriel narrated dramatically, following the thrum of life energy so very close to them. “They will see your raw power and respect it as they perish by it. They’ll respect you,” he murmured. He couldn’t help but embellish. He saw the hungry look on his brother’s face and he wanted to fulfill that need for him, because he knew how it felt. The need to be seen, to be known, to feel your own impact. He knew how it hurt.

This planet — this insignificant, outback, Shi'ar-territory planet — was a world of non-sentient apes. Innocent creatures, they were the dominant species on this planet by intelligence; they used simple tools, like the great apes of Earth, and they held alpha dynamics like wolves in their strong, family units that extended into numerous clans. But they were hairless, and that made them look a bit more sentient to prejudiced, mutant eyes.

And hopefully, Alex would be too busy relishing in their slaughter to notice they weren’t putting up much of an ordered fight. His powers were incredibly destructive, flattening, force, and Gabriel was putting a lot of stock into that advantage. Thank gods Alex had never conquered a planet before or this might be a harder stretch to make.

Alex smiled at him, and though the wild glint didn’t fade, it was a soft smile, more genuine. “No funky alien technology to upset our fun, I see you looking out for your less omnipotent big brother~”

Gabriel felt the fire rise in his cheeks, that meant he was probably blushing by the compliment. It meant a lot from Alex, regardless of the context. It meant a lot to be appreciated. “Of course I am, that’s what family’s for,” he clasped his bicep in a firm grip, and Alex clasped his in return, holding it for several moments before at once they released. “The way your fire can bring low great organisms shows me what beauty is,” Gabriel murmured. “Now let us paint this world with their blood.”

Alex’s smile grew again, and once more it was uncontrolled, unfettered, unrestrained by typical confines of the imagination. “I want to see how loud I can make them scream~” he gasped, and dashed off into the thicket. Gabriel raced after him, heart pounding as he prayed his brother wouldn’t try out any drawn-out torture tactics to break the ruse.

They were here, and Gabriel was proud of himself — and prouder still when he saw the look of thrill in the eyes of his brother at the creatures ready to be terrorized. He was relieved that he had found a way. And he felt the fire in him too, burning, seething… he heard it roar in his ears as Alex delighted himself, basking in the heady glow of this system’s red sun.

Despite Alex’s words of excitement, he didn’t seem to notice that the squeals of pain weren’t intelligent. To Gabriel that was no surprise, as Alex would expect an unfamiliar language — and even the smartest of beings resorted to their animal tendencies when faced with unknowable destruction like the blasts of his brother’s abilities.

Alex laughed and whooped and screamed as he tortured the creatures — he was cold and stony-faced as he blasted their corpses into the dirt. His face screwed up when he turned to throwing punches like there was no tomorrow, teeth bared in his grimace curled into a snarl that was familiar and horrific and quintessentially Alex, because Gabriel himself had been on the receiving end of that same snarl before.

_Wild yet determined, trained yet without restraint, fighting tooth and nail in every blow Havok hurled upon his brother — less power but more determination, Alex Summers was a man who truly believed that willpower beat firepower, that desire won over strength, that right superseded might._

Alex’s face glowed with sweat. His emotions were spilling out, ill-controlled, as they continued in slow, uneven cycles through the slaughter. And it _was_ a slaughter. Gabriel wasn’t sure what he had expected, but whether or not this was right he could not be shocked by magnificence — the more he beheld the hotter, wilder, _roaring_ his own fire grew. He drank in the creatures’ fear. They recognized power. They felt a fraction of the pain that tortured the mutants in the devastation Alex dealt upon them.

Inexperienced or not, Alex must see the value in leaving enough alive to subjugate, but it was clear he was really devastated by the person he had lost. He _needed_ this.

Alex bellowed wordlessly at times; he cried loudly at others, like a man mourning a lost life, a beautiful ribbon cut off far too short. At moments he chose to justify himself, as any person did — shouting at his victims that this was justice for the warlike actions of their people. Though he’d led a battalion against Vulcan, Alex hated war. He’d never wanted to be a soldier, hero, or leader — but circumstances Gabriel had yet to fully understand seemed to compel the geology student back to the same old song again and again. And boy, was it old.

Gabriel knew anger and hurt. He’d snap and kill followers at the slightest dissent because he remembered what it was to be treated as nothing and it would not happen, never again. He was no longer some Terran slave boy, he was strong, he was emperor.

_A hair trigger temper, a paper thin fuse, his consciousness never fading, nor the paranoia of his childhood enslaved and abandoned, lashing out, storming, screaming, burning both enemies and dissidents alive because he was master now, no one could take that from him…_

…and he lost control.

He hadn’t planned to lose control of his emotions. He’d wanted to provide for Alex, nothing more — he couldn’t risk destroying this slice of happiness he’d found, he couldn’t risk _cracking_ his shell and becoming the _monster_ (that lay beneath). But he was still Vulcan, he was still the man who’d blown up homes to billions and laughed himself giddy, and the fire within him never stopped burning, even when he drank and fucked and tried desperately to forget.

You couldn’t stop a wildfire. It raged and devoured and spread until a torrential downpour stemmed it or the forest was burned to the ground. People could try, they could call up firetrucks and make a whole show of doing something about it, but that plasmic, elemental force of nature could not be denied by man, and the fury of fire would not cease or show mercy until it was its time.

_They will see you as changed — reborn, healthy, and whole. But that is just a shell. Underneath it — buried alive in a shallow grave — is the real you._

They lay in the grass clearing unknown hours later, their uniforms sticky with blood, after splashing across a creek to get some of it clumsily off. The sun shone through the branches that Alex had blasted apart for them, and it felt nice as its scarlet rays landed upon their muscles, their backs cooled by soft foliage beneath them. Gabriel never was cold, but he didn’t think Alex was uncomfortable with the temperature, either. Alex had been chattering away for a while, about dominance and pain and torture and the X-Men, and Scott, and Krakoa, and what he thought of all the Hellions. His opinions were quite thorough and thought out. Gabriel had comments and input of his own, which he was free with, but he was only half listening. He was imbibing the ambiance.

Gabriel was happy. He should feel far more uneasy to experience a side of Alex so damaged that he could release his fire upon others, and so out of his mind that he could no longer regulate the darkness that all Summerses surely already fostered. Insanity and trauma themselves didn’t make you an aspiring serial killer, after all. It took long-held bitterness, anger, and something much, much worse.

Gabriel knew he should feel especially concerned to recognize the numbing, dizzying buzz in the back of his own head that had never left him for as long as he’d sought vengeance and power amongst his oppressors. He should be frightened to feel at peace here, with the brother he had deceived for his own good, not far from the innocent creatures he had helped brutalize, but it felt like he’d done something good — and besides, Scott did say he needed to get out of the house more. Those horrifying cosmic voices, those beings in his visions and dreams — they couldn’t be real, because he should have shattered completely, right? He shouldn’t be at peace here, in the wake of death and destruction.

_Feeling too much, too deeply, his soul bursting its stitches as if no creature was built to hold so much—_

Alex had fallen silent, back arched against the ground as he gazed with some awe at the magenta clouds, and Gabriel imagined he was visualizing the shapes of objects in the fluff of their forms. He’d heard brothers did that together, when they were younger.

“Where are we?” Alex asked presently, like the most casual question in the world. Something had changed about him again; his voice more tired and less certain, and the glint in his eyes smoothed away by the tranquility of the soothing, heavenly scene.

“The planet of…” Gabriel rolled over in the foliage, and gazed at him with half a smile still lingering from the roar of the release. Why the hell had he spent so long avoiding this? “You don’t remember?”

Alex shook his head slowly, and smiled back, somehow inappropriately. “Just fragments. You took me here to let off steam? Aw… Gabe…” he laughed, a deep, hearty laugh, that seemed just as out of place amidst the heavy attitude he was beginning to convey, “Aw, Gabey…”

Still, the laughter was contagious, as it burst through Gabriel’s smirk, and he began to chuckle with him at the sheer incredulity of the situation. It was incredibly nice, laying in the otherworldly grass, in pools of watery blood sunk into the ground, just laughing. Like brothers. Whatever Alex remembered, it didn’t seem particularly to disturb him. Maybe he was too used to the dissociative amnesia and this was a coping mechanism. Maybe he felt the fruitlessness of making a fuss too deep down in his heart.

“Gabe… haha, I should tell Scott, but I don’t want to get you in trouble… ha ha ha ha… did I do it by myself or was it Summers brothers style? Who’d we kill?”

Gabriel felt the smile from cheek to cheek, as he rolled over again, throwing an arm over Alex’s. “Locals! Perhaps — haha — a hundred or so — ha! Wanna kill more now your head’s clearer?”

“Hahahaha, definitely not, I already have enough nightmares.” Alex ended on a lower note, a frown taking the place of the laughter as he seemingly withdrew into his head. His eyes were still unfocused, but he was increasingly like that these days. It was concerning.

The buzz didn’t depart Gabriel’s chest, but the joy he had felt faded into nothing. Alex was laying beside him, and the wry despair was clear across his features. He was still fundamentally a hero. That meant in very fundamental ways, he was unlike Gabriel, in ways Gabriel wished he could be, too. Alex wasn’t proud of what he’d done. He might even be horrified.

Gabriel found his words carefully. “If it helps, the Sh’iar classify this species as Class 4 Insentient. Take it as you will, but they’d just hit us with a fine and say we just slaughtered a bunch of animals.”

Alex blinked, as if confused by this statement. Then he let out a small gasp, and began to _cry_. His body trembled as the tears flowed, palms clasping against his chest, his cranium against the grass as his chest rose and fell shakily.

Gabriel sat up, alarmed that he had misread him. “Alex, I’m sorry I lied to you… like I said, if you remember, the things I did caused me more pain in the end, I thought it would be better for both of us… You asked for one moment, and I _gave_ it to you. You let loose your fire as I did.”

“N-no… th-thank you,” Alex whispered through tears, turning away from him as he pushed himself upright. “I’m glad… I… I didn’t hurt people, you d-did the right th-thing…”

Gabriel sat up too, heart still abuzz in the emotion and the moment as he crawled through the bloodstained grass and wrapped his arms around him at an angle. “What do you need?” His cheek rested against his shoulder, even as Alex turned away from him.

Alex only shook his head, trembling, but leaned back into his brother’s warmth, although he didn’t face him. Gabriel sat silently, arms wrapped carefully around his shoulders, and wished once again that he was better at comfort.

These could be tears of guilt or from exhaustion or in grief, he didn’t know. He guessed it was a blend of the three. He could swear he heard something that sounded like _I’m a monster_ under his breath — though it was impossible to tell, muffled beneath the sleek black glove of his suit. Neither spoke for a while, but Alex trembled against his brother.

Eventually Gabriel spoke up. “A fierce warrior flame burns brightly in you, Alex, fanned by your experiences. We’re forced into violence with such great superhuman powers… how can it not stoke the embers of pain and rage? How can one expect to contain such fire without combustion? But you didn’t hurt _anyone_ , Alex, you’re just trying to express your pain.”

Alex raised his head, damp-faced. He seemed to stare vacantly through the brush. “I’m proud of you… being the level-headed one. I really thought I was… and I did… kill… Gabriel… I’m so _sorry_.”

Surely Alex had no idea how much it meant to Gabriel to hear him say he was proud — the fire that burned within Gabriel swelled to become the greatest furnace of fulfillment. “You have nothing to apologize for,” Gabriel said. “I _understand_.”

“I know you do. You’ve been trying so hard to be better, to be a good person… And I just went and shat all over it.” Alex shook his head, as if trying to shake away a haze, but tears were forming again in his eyes. “I’ve always been… like… I didn’t realize…” he swallowed, as if finding it difficult to keep track of his thoughts, but he seemed determined to express himself. “I’ve always known I was less than Scott... but it’s not because he’s a better leader… because he’s a better man… I’ve told myself I… I am good… but I’m not… now my head’s messed up… it’s out there for the world to see…” Alex’s voice hitched as the tears seemed to flow once more. “I feel like I’m out of control…”

_Havok’s derisive laughter, echoing in his ears… who just kept laughing at him, because apparently seeing how mad it made his captor gave him the strength to break loose from his mumbling face-scratching slow descent into madness every time— weak, pathetic, evil, worthless — it worked EVERY TIME — and Vulcan was that scared little boy again — and the emperor, who could be controlled by no one, knew he was at the mercy of his own mind._

“I know,” said Gabriel softly, running his arm along his shoulders as he slipped to sit by his side. “ _Gods_ , I know.”

There was nothing he could do to solve it. No easy fix. All he could do was be there and understand. He, who had waged a War of Kings, unleashed weapons his own greatest warriors feared and threatened his advisors who warned him to sue for peace. He knew the slow realization — the fear — the desperate, near-suicidal _panic_ of accepting you were out of control, the trapped realization that you couldn’t trust your own judgement, yet so paranoid to trust anyone else’s, either.

He wished he could say something reassuring. He wished he could promise that he could be the one to keep him from taking that step too far. He wished he didn’t still dread the same thing that Alex seemed to fear — that his proximity to Alex’s enthusiastic sadism would be the straw to break the camel’s back, to sweep up Gabriel back into that firestorm of vengeance and paranoia. At least they could be evil together. At least it would be better than the fate his nightmares made him fear.

Sharra and K’ythri, Gabriel didn’t want to go back to _feeling_ that way.

“I wish you could’ve known Maddy,” Alex said suddenly. The tears glimmered still on his cheeks, but he seemed partly to have recovered. “She was beautiful and kind, and had the biggest heart of anyone I’ve ever known. She had a fire inside her, too, born from pain and horrible loss. A wild, uncontrolled fury. Ever the forgotten sister, ever the forgotten brother.”

“She sounds like an extraordinary woman,” Gabriel said, as he failed to place the name. It was interesting to consider, though… _Alex_ saw himself as the forgotten brother.

“She deserved better,” Alex scowled at the ground, with every air of a person who wasn’t going to let this stand. Gabriel didn’t know what that meant. There was a silence.

“Thank you, Gabe,” Alex smiled fragilely. “I know I’m… I see the look on Scott’s face, it hurts him, I know whatever is going on with me… it’s not good. It means a lot to have a brother who isn’t ashamed of me.”

Gabriel shook his hand. “I am honored that anything means shit to you coming from me.” He paused, before hesitantly, “It was fun though, wasn’t it?” he said, wiping off blood onto the grass. Alex smiled faintly at him, through sweat and residual guilt.

“Yeah, it was.”

The flight back to the Moon seemed faster somehow — or maybe there was just less tension in Alex’s posture, less trepidation in Gabriel’s heart — though according to Alex, from his perspective it felt infinitely longer.

Alex seemed completely ‘normal’ by the time they got back, the tense but functional brother Gabriel had come to know and care for. He smiled and thanked Gabriel for the ride, stretched, and beckoned him back inside to find something from the kitchen. It was hauntingly sad how quick he could go from zero to a hundred — no wonder he felt so powerless. Gabriel was glad his older brother didn’t have to remember all of it.

He knew he couldn’t help Alex, not really. He certainly couldn’t fix him the way _he_ had been ‘fixed’, if those nightmares held any glimpse of truth. For all the feelings Gabriel might understand, he couldn’t attempt to unravel the extent of damage upon his brother’s mind, perhaps layers upon layers of scar tissue that had never fully healed. He barely understood himself.

In a way, Alex seemed more lost than he had ever been, because as delusional as his own logic was, at least Gabriel had always known why he was angry. He’d first decided to kill his family to punish Xavier for damning him. He’d determined to become emperor to take vengeance on D’Ken and never feel powerless again, after an upbringing so traumatic for a time he’d locked away the memories. It had taken time to work through the details, and he still didn’t get it completely, but Gabriel had always known why he _felt_ like this.

But Alex didn’t understand himself. He’d spent so long repressing his pain, living in borderline obsession to be just a little bit more like Scott, who repressed emotions and pain better than anyone else alive. He’d spent a lifetime trying to feel normal when he was anything but, fighting against his own introversion to be a leader in a world that hated and feared him. Alex probably couldn’t pinpoint the root of his anger because he’d refused to acknowledge it until it broke him. In honesty, Gabriel should probably ask them more about their childhoods, but he’d at least got the impression that working under Mister Sinister was bad news for the Summers family.

Gabriel wished he could help him, but all he could do was try to make it easier when Alex came undone right in front of him. And for as great as the risk was for the old Vulcan to come back, with all those emotions and anger he had no starting place to tell if was proportional to the crime, he couldn’t continue to live in fear of his nightmares forever because then he _would_ come back and the nightmares would continue regardless.

Because Gabriel had almost done it. He had almost given Alex what he wanted. Two systems from the planet he had chosen — a mere heartbeat away, for him — there was an inhabited world, sentient natives, a Class 2 Civilization on an agricultural economy who really weren’t prepared to fight back. He and Alex could have conquered them together.

But he _hadn’t_. And that _mattered_. Because the choices he made _mattered_. It was what getting to know his family had _done_ for him. It was that he _loved_ them. And he would keep loving them, even if someday gods forbid his own flood of emotional conviction returned and persuaded him they didn’t love him back.

Maybe his tactic of avoidance hadn’t made for much good in him, because he hadn’t chosen the planet he had out of basic human decency — it was because he hadn’t thought Alex would be able to handle becoming responsible for a genocide. But if there was one thing real-or-not-real other-dimensional horrors who saw any trace of good as a flaw couldn’t account for, it was the love that made him do that, right?

For all his pain, as horrible his fears, as horrible as _he_ never again wanted to be again but knew that deep down he’d been too afraid to risk not being in the first place, he realized that doing his best for Alex only really freed them both — _beautiful, broken creature_ that he was.

**Author's Note:**

> This quote feels poignant somehow:
> 
>  _“Gabriel is too far gone. The X-Men believe in redemption, but it’s too late for him. We would have given him every chance we could, but not after what he’s done. Vulcan… my brother… has to die. And I’m pretty sure that’s something Scott **couldn’t** do.”_  
> —Alex, discussing the one (1) O N E singular thing he doesn’t think Scott is better than him at.  
> [X-Men: Emperor Vulcan #3 (January 2008)]
> 
> ~~if pressed I will go on about the “source” of Alex’s anger Gabe is wondering about~~


End file.
